The 2024 GHSC Conference took place in Lagos, Nigeria, from November 12th to 15th, under the theme ‘Value chain innovations for universal health coverage’, expressed as follows:
‘’Countries are working towards universal health coverage (UHC) by building resilient and equitable health systems, and investments and innovation across the healthcare value chain can accelerate this progress. The value chain refers to the system and processes required to finance, develop, manufacture, and deliver treatments and technologies to patients. Strong supply chains are the backbone of value chains and ensure that materials, information, infrastructure, human resources, and partnerships across sectors are in place to achieve UHC.
Rapid technological change in data science and artificial intelligence, health systems management, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, and pharmaceutical manufacturing offer tremendous opportunities to improve the healthcare value chain. At the same time, these advancements are forcing supply chains to become more environmentally sustainable and responsible. GHSCS 2024 will highlight innovations across the value chain that move us towards UHC through keynotes and talks’’.
This forum brings together governments, development partners, NGOs, academia, and private sector players to share experiences knowledge, and information aligned to each event’s theme.
ARC’s participation:
1- Panel Moderator: Manufacturing Innovations and Advances for Health Products
ARC participated as a moderator of this panel, whose objective was to discuss the opportunities, issues, and challenges stemming from recent innovations and advances in pharmaceutical and diagnostic health product manufacturing for health value chains in LMICs.
For the panel, we are seeking the perspectives of local Nigerian pharmaceutical manufacturers, innovators, and facilitators in the pharmaceutical and diagnostic manufacturing spaces.
The panelists were:
- Dr. Patrick Lukulay, Chief Regulatory Officer, Bio Usawa Inc., USA
- Prof. Padmashree Gehl Sampath, Chief Executive Officer, African Pharmaceutical Technology Foundation
- Ms. Uzoma Ezeoke, Executive Director, Emzor Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd
- Chris Lim, Chief, Strategic Fund for Public Health Supplies, PAHO
The panel established that there was still needed commitment from countries on the African continent to invest in strengthening local manufacturers, many of which are privately owned and have invested heavily in creating quality products and, are meeting all the basic regulatory requirements.
2- Panel Moderator: SANOFI GHU sponsored panel on “How to push treatment and care access to the Last Mile”
This panel, co-moderated by Yacine Fatime Ndao, explored how innovative start-ups, supported by impact funds, are addressing critical challenges to improve healthcare access at the last mile. Three start-ups were convened, namely mPharma (leveraging private pharmacies to improve access to medicines), SureChill (specialized in innovative refrigeration to address last mile cold chain challenges), and Lifebank (specialized in blood, oxygen, medical consumables, and equipment, using innovative technology solutions).
Through the development of strategic partnerships with global organizations like SANOFI Global Health Unit, these start-ups were able to reach more patients, leveraging on key elements to drive impact:
- Building more strategic partnerships to join forces for improved resource mobilization,
- Use of technologies to ensure visibility across the supply chain and efficiency of operations,
- Workforce development to ensure transfer of competencies and sustainability of solutions.
The breakthrough suggestion raised by the audience is to create a platform for start-ups to increase the opportunity for funding from global institutions such as the World Bank.
3- Panel participant: Supply Chain Beyond the Clinic
ARC was represented by Douglas Onyancha. The panel examined the opportunities for offering services and improving access beyond the traditional clinic/health facility, into the community. It further looked at existing approaches and critical success factors.
Douglas presented the approach used in the community pharmacy model, the achievements in Kenya and Uganda, and the impact of the model. The discussion elicited questions from the audience that desired to know about sustainability and, how we managed the process and, whether it was discriminatory.
Douglas took them through the design and selection process and how modeling shows that the investment is worth it and, moving beyond the clinic and engaging in public-private partnerships.
4- Presentation: Successful application process of the outsourcing tool kit (OSTK) for the outsourcing of transport at EPSS – results of assessment and evaluation phases
This presentation was done by Alemayehu Wolde (ARC Country Director Ethiopia) on behalf of EPSS who were not able to attend.
The presentation was attended by many participants and was shared with a link as per the request from the GHSCS Organizers.
Other ARC-supported presentations or panel discussions were made by the following:
5- Kenya Ministry of Health (DHPT) on Climate Change and Health: Lessons for supply chain adaptation and transformation. A representative from the DHPT was part of the panel speaking to discuss how climate change is affecting population health across the world and how supply chains have–and must–responded to the challenges generated by climate change.
The panel also explored strategies for transforming supply chains to be more sustainable, reducing their environmental footprint while ensuring they remain robust enough to handle the demands of a changing world. Finally, the panel discussed technologies and innovations needed in climate mitigation, as well as new diagnostics and treatments that will be necessary to address the shifting disease burden.
6 – EPSS: Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Process Improvement Journey: A Case Study on the EPSS. This presentation was made under the ‘Prize Presentation’ category. In this work which ARC contributed to through advisory services (from 2020), the EPSS showed how investment in system strengthening and also development and growth in Human Resources has led to demonstrated evidence of change in thinking by staff, approach to work, and also commitment to the delivery of results in the supply chain space, using Kaizen operational and systems management approaches. This presentation was awarded the First Prize at this year’s GHSC. EPSS also presented the
7- Kenya Ministry of Health (DHPT):Building self-sustainability for health products and technologies (HPT) in Kenya: Enhancing local manufacturing of HPT. This presentation was made under the sub-theme of Collaboration and Partnerships across Sectors and presented the work of local market assessment of local manufacturing capabilities in Kenya.
8- KEMSA: While the projects presented at the summit were not a result of ARC TA, ARC supported their participation in the summit. The Kenya Medical Supplies Authority (KEMSA) presented two projects namely: a) Kenya’s Digital Leap in Malaria Prevention with Smart Net Distribution, where they leveraged IT tools to ensure transparency visibility, and timely delivery of NETS at a lower cost. b) Strengthening Health Product Security with Integrated Logistics Management Systems (i-LMIS) for Universal Health Coverage in Kenya: through this initiative, KEMSA has improved commodity ordering and enhanced visibility.
9- Visit the Federal Central Medical Store. The Federal Central Medical Store gives a very good example of a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) with the outsourcing of the warehousing and distribution. The government, in collaboration with the private sector (MEBS), has set up an up-to-standard warehouse complying with all storage standards in terms of layout, safety, and technology. This approach allowed us to optimize operational costs and gain benefits to keep the warehouse up to standards.
This PPP experience can inspire other countries that are still exploring the opportunity.
Appreciation and Conclusion:
ARC supported Kenya and Ethiopia to attend the GHSC conference. Both governments were appreciative of the support that ARC had made to their institutions to make it possible for them to participate in this year’s GHSC. Expressions of lessons were made, primarily by the CEO of KEMSA.
Overall, the GHSC was a great opportunity to meet with partners and make new connections that will benefit ARC. These included private sector players who were in the manufacturing or logistics space and were seeking advice in engaging with donors and African Union institutions such as Regional Economic Communities. Recognition of ARC for some of the key works that we have supported was good to see, for example, such as in the work at EPSS and in Kenya.
ARC should continue to monitor which supply chain events to attend each year so that we can also judge the level of participation for impact. As stated, there are a number of Supply Chain related conferences that take place each year.
Donors and indeed participants have voiced their concern about the plethora of these conferences that may appear to be ends in themselves. Grantees such as ARC have to be considerate about which of these events to attend, using basic selection criteria that the management team must develop.
